“Well, I can fix that issue in a few days,” Flynn said.
“I thought you were a hotshot supervisor in the oil business these days,” Nessa said.
“I was until Nanny Lucy’s lawyer called with the news that Uncle Isaac’s case against the will had fallen through,” he said. “Now I’m just an unemployed guy who is a third owner of this hot house with no air-conditioning.”
“You quit your job over this?” Nessa waved her hand to take in the whole place.
“I needed a change anyway,” Flynn said, “and this gave me a good reason.”
Nessa grabbed a tissue from a box on the end table and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Daddy had his heart set on using this property for a religious retreat for his church deacons and the heads of his committees. He thought he might have to buy out Uncle Matthew to get it, so he’d already started a church donation fund to do that. The church owns a nice bus they could have used to transport the people from there to here, and Mama said he was thinking about setting up a fund for a little airplane.”
“Have you talked to him since . . . ?” April asked.
Nessa raised a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve listened to him rant and rave about things, but lately I’ve been ignoring his calls. I got tired of hearing him yell about the unfairness of the court system,” she answered. Then she changed the subject. “Flynn, how do you know anything about rewiring a house?”
He shrugged. “I took classes for that kind of thing in vo-tech when I was in high school. Then I started at the bottom in the oil field business before I ever graduated. They had me doing everything from wiring to digging ditches.” Flynn opened more windows in the living room and dining area. “I learned how to do all kinds of electrical things as well as the regular oil business.” He returned with two oscillating fans and plugged them in.
“Are you going to use the money she left you to rewire the house?” Nessa asked.
“Yep, and then some of my own money to put an air conditioner in that window.” He pointed. “I came here to get my life in order. I don’t have to sweat to death while I’m doing it. Thank God it’s June first and not the middle of July or August when it feels like it’s seven degrees hotter than hell in this part of the world. I don’t mind the heat in the day. I got used to that back when I was working outside all the time, but I hate to sleep without cool air.”
“Want to elaborate on that business about getting your life in order?” April felt like her feet and legs were filled with concrete and she couldn’t move past the middle of the living room floor. Memories of the pain, both physical and mental, that she’d felt in the bedroom she’d used when she was growing up flashed through her mind. The switch across her legs, the guilt trips when Nanny Lucy told her how much she had sacrificed to give April a decent, God-fearing home, and the way the walls seemed to close in on her when she was put in her room for hours on end all flashed through her mind. She couldn’t make herself take a step toward that room. She’d forgotten that she’d even asked a question until she realized Flynn was talking.
“I do not want to talk about anything right now,” Flynn said. “We all three share DNA, but I don’t really know either of you. I hadn’t seen you”—he nodded toward Nessa—“in six or seven years before Nanny Lucy’s funeral.” He turned to focus on April. “And it must be ten years since I’ve seen you. So I don’t feel like baring my soul to either of you.”
“Fair enough,” April said. “I guess we’ll get to know each other pretty quick when we work on the quilt out in the shed, though, won’t we?”
“I’d like to go out there and take a look at it.” Nessa headed for the door. “And then I’m going to unpack. I suppose April and I will be sharing a room.”
“You can have the room.” April didn’t want to sleep in the room where she’d cried herself to sleep too many nights to count. “The sofa folds out into a bed, and it’s a lot more comfortable than sleeping in the back seat of my car or on the trundle bed in that room.” She didn’t even look down the short hallway toward the door leading into the room.
“Poor little April.” Nessa’s condescending tone was just short of pure whining.
April whipped around and pointed a finger only inches from Nessa’s nose. “Don’t judge me. You haven’t walked even a foot in my shoes, so you don’t get to talk down to me. Sometimes one person’s heaven is another person’s pure old hell.”
Nessa threw up her palms defensively. “All right. I won’t fight you for the sofa. I’d rather have it, since your old room just has a twin bed, but if you want to sleep in the living room, who am I to deny you that?”
“Before I’ll go in that room, I’ll go out to the quilting shed and use a sleeping bag. I’ve slept under the quilt frame plenty of times.” April marched through the living room, the dining area, and the kitchen and out the back door.
Nessa followed her. “We’re going to have to try to get along. This house isn’t big enough for us to hide from each other.”
“No, it’s not.” Flynn came out right behind them.
“You lived in a nice place with a lovely bedroom and two parents who loved you the whole time you were growing up, didn’t you, Nessa?” April hadn’t come to Blossom with intentions of being hateful or pouting. Like Flynn, she had come for a fresh start, and hopefully, to find closure, but dammit, Nessa had always known just which buttons to push to make her mad.
“Yep, and the church was close by if I really wanted to hide, or if I wanted to meet my boyfriend and make out in one of the Sunday-school classrooms,” Nessa said. “Let’s don’t get into the joys of being a preacher’s daughter.” She reached out and turned the knob on the door of the quilting shed, and the door opened. “I wonder why this door isn’t locked.”
“Probably because everyone in these parts was too afraid of Lucy O’Riley to ever even think about stealing one of her quilts,” Flynn said. “With her red-haired temper, she would have shot first and asked questions later. I guess she’s still got that shotgun in the house somewhere. Would you know where, April?”
“The shotgun is always loaded and under her bed, and her .38 revolver, loaded also, will be under her pillow. If you need to use them, just remember to cock the hammer,” April answered.
She had asked her grandmother once why she slept with a gun under her pillow and another one under her bed. Lucy had told her that one or both could take care of snakes, both the kind that slithered and the two-legged kind. Maybe that was where April had gone wrong. She never had a gun to take care of those two-legged varmints that seemed to be always taking advantage of her.
No! she fussed at herself. I’m here for that rebirth stuff, not to think about all the times I’ve failed in the past.
Chapter Three
Nessa walked around the edges of the patchwork quilt that was stretched on a wooden frame. She’d never tackled anything this big, and it was a little scary, especially when she thought about the Blossom Quilting Club passing judgment on the thing when they were finished. She remembered that two other women had made up the club with her grandmother, but it had been years since she’d seen them. Nanny Lucy had talked about them—Stella and Vivien—when Nessa called her.